The United States military says it killed five people in a strike on a boat it described as carrying out drug trafficking in the eastern Pacific. The attack continues a campaign that legal scholars and rights groups have condemned as extrajudicial killings.
US Southern Command, known as SOUTHCOM, which oversees American military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced the strike on Tuesday in a social media post. It said Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, acting under SOUTHCOM direction, carried out a "lethal, kinetic strike" on a go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes.
"Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel's active involvement in narco-trafficking," the command said. "The operation killed five narco-terrorists." The post gave the date of the strike as October 27.
According to a tracker maintained by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a US-based research group that promotes human rights and democracy, the administration of President Donald Trump had previously killed at least 238 people in 68 reported strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. The campaign began in September 2025. Tuesday's attack appears to bring the reported total to 243 people.
SOUTHCOM has often released videos alongside its announcements that purportedly show vessels being struck. The government has rarely offered details to back up its claims that those targeted were involved in drug trafficking. Relatives of some of those killed have said the victims were fishermen or workers with no connection to the drug trade.
The Trump administration has designated numerous criminal groups in Latin America as foreign "terrorist" organisations. Legal experts reject that framing. They say drug trafficking is a criminal activity, and that military strikes are not permitted as a response to it.
Adam Isacson, an analyst at WOLA who has tracked the strikes, responded to the SOUTHCOM announcement on social media. "This is the 6th lethal boat strike in the past 4 months," he wrote.
Isacson said the pace of attacks is slower than before. "But the administration and its commanders persist in grinding out illegal killings every few weeks, with no discernible impact on the drug trade," he said, adding: "A bleak pre-midterms message."
